Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly

Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly (27 December 1761-26 May 1818) was the Minister of War of the Russian Empire from 1810 to 1813. He was also a Field Marshal of the Russian Army, fighting in the Napoleonic Wars.

Biography
Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly was born in Siauliai in Courland (present-day Lithuania) to a family of Scottish nobles of the Clan Barclay. In 1767 he joined a Pskov Carabiner Regiment and from 1788 to 1789 he gained experience fighting against Turks, while in 1790 he fought the Swedes. He was made a Major-General during the Polish Campaign in 1794, and during the Napoleonic Wars, he fought Napoleon at the Battle of Pultusk and the Battle of Eylau. Barclay de Tolly was made Minister of War in 1810, a year after he led Russian forces in the Finland War against Sweden; he won a battle by surprising the Swedes after marching over the frozen Gulf of Bothnia. During the Russian Campaign of Napoleon in 1812 he fought the French at Smolensk and Borodino, and took command of the Russian army after the death of General Mikhail Kutuzov.

Barclay de Tolly fought in the German Campaign of 1813, being made a count after the Battle of the Nations (Leipzig) on 16-19 October. During the Defense of France it was his Russian army that captured Paris from the French and ended the Napoleonic Wars, and he died in 1818, shortly after, while commanding Russian occupation forces in the country.